A leader of the Communist League in Canada, Michel Dugré has joined the race for mayor of Montreal promising to form the first "workers and farmers government."
A presser, member of the Clothing Union, Michel Dugré, 50 years old, launched his campaign yesterday by promising a handful of voters "a worker's response to the social problems which are affecting Montreal."
If he is ever elected mayor November 1, Dugré promises to reduce the work week of municipal employees to 30 hours a week "without loss of wages" in order to make room for unemployed youth.
More than anything, he wants the next mayor of Montreal "to build solidarity" with the workers and oppressed. The socialist mayoral candidate began his "precampaign" last week by visiting the locked out employees of the Casino and the paper workers on strike in the regions of...Trois Rivieres and Shawinigan.
Michel Dugré supports all the good causes beginning with the nurses. "We want to reestablish social programs," he says, "and improve the road network with new infrastructure programs..."
When it is pointed out to him that a mayor, even if he heads a great metropolis, has more often than not a modest role, consisting in cleaning the streets, parks and alleys, he replies, "We are in a crisis of the capitalist economy. The problems of Montreal are without question Montreal problems, but the solutions are far from being Montreal solutions.'
He wants to reduce the hours of work, increase services for the citizens...Where will he get the money?
"Money isn't a problem," Dugré assures us. "There are huge amounts of money but they are used to serve the interests of the big companies. A government must decide if the capitalists or the workers must pay..."
As we suspected, the socialist candidate has tried without success to win elections in the past. In the June 2, 1997, federal elections, he got 469 votes in the riding of Papineau-St. Denis (won by Pierre Pettigrew); in 1993, in the provincial elections not less than 130 voters expressed their confidence in him in the riding of Laurier-Sainte Marie; finally in the municipal elections of 1990, he won a moral victory: 1 percent of the vote for mayor with 1,762 votes...